Video monitoring of meals at sea by a craft that spends more time feeding fish than catching them - such is the level of equipment on board a £250,000 u0.25 million salmon farming vessel which was recently launched in Donegal.
The 43-foot Ocean Bay was built by Mooney's Boatyard in Killybegs, Co Donegal. It received EU and State aid through Bord Iascaigh Mhara and was launched on behalf of the Ocean Farm salmon company by Fianna Fail MEP Mr Pat "The Cope" Gallagher.
Ocean Farm is owned by Gallagher Brothers, one of Ireland's leading seafood companies which employs 80 full- and part-time staff and has a projected turnover of £9 million this year.
The company is also involved in fish catching, processing and marketing.
The launch was held to coincide with Bradan 99, the annual conference of the Irish Salmon Growers' Association (ISGA), in Killybegs. In an attempt to quell growing discontent among fish farmers over bureaucratic delays in licensing, the Minister for the Marine, Dr Woods, and his junior minister, Mr Hugh Byrne, met a delegation of ISGA members, led by the Irish Farmers' Association, recently to discuss the issue.
The Minister promised to carry out an immediate review by the Department of the Marine and Natural Resources, aimed at improving "customer service". Dr Woods said that extra resources, both staff and financial, would be given to the Aquaculture Licence Appeals Board, and said that BIM would review the technical support schemes and services it provides to the sector.
Fish farmers are known to be very unhappy with delays in applications and conditions imposed by the Department's coastal zone administration division. They blame the new licensing system, introduced in 1997 after much lobbying, for the lack of development by the industry. Not one tonne has been added to annual production since then, they claim.
